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Why I am disappointed in the Balanced Mind Foundation

While I sincerely appreciate Part 2 of Susan’s Resko’s blog about Adam Lanza, it does not go nearly far enough, and does not even touch upon the failure of our public education system to educate children with the early onset of psychiatric illness. She is correct that we need to stop blaming parents and medications.

What Susan fails to address is the NIMH’s misguided focus to discount the existence of Bipolar Disorder in children and the egregious lack of funding for research. She also fails to address the failure of pharmaceuticals to do pediatric trials of the medications prescribed to treat complex brain disorders that often have multiple comorbidities.

As a nation we are failing children born with the early onset of psychiatric illness. There are only 6300 pediatric psychiatrists across the U.S. and the need is far greater. As an advocate I shutter when I am asked for the names of pediatric psychiatrists because I know that so few are knowledgeable and current with the research and those that are do little pro-bono work.

I know that many parents have no insurance to pay for pediatric psychiatrists or psychologists and others have high deductibles and the doctors are out of network. IDEA does not recognize bipolar disorder anymore than it recognizes Asperger’s and PDD-NOS. Many states like MI don’t have state-imposed special ed rules that recognize these disorders.

Children are losing their educational lives…they are losing their lives to the juvenile court system and to suicide. So while I appreciate Part 2 of Ms. Resko’s blog, she and the Balanced Mind Foundation lost me when they lost their “balance” and kicked Pediatric Bipolar Disorder to the medical-curb.